“Monsieur l’Abbé,” answered Monsieur Roman, “what I look for from the historians is not frivolous amusement. It is a serious study, and I am filled with despair if I find fiction mingled with fact. I study human actions in relation to the conduct of nations, and I seek for maxims of government in history.” “I am not ignorant of that, Monsieur,” said my good master. “Your treatise on ‘Monarchy’ is renowned enough for us to know that you have conceived a political system drawn from history.” “In such sort,” said Monsieur Roman, “I have been the first to draw rules for princes and ministers which they cannot avoid without danger.” “And we behold you, Monsieur, on the frontispiece of your book, in the likeness of Minerva, presenting to a youthful king the mirror handed you by the muse, Clio, hovering above your head, in a study decked with busts and pictures. But allow me to tell you, Monsieur, that this muse is a story-teller, and that she holds out to you a mirror of falsehood. There are few truths in history, and the only facts on which all agree are those we get from a single source. Historians contradict one another every time they meet. Even more! We see that Flavius Josephus, who has pourtrayed the same incidents in his ‘Antiquities’ and in his ‘Wars of the Jews,’ records them differently in each of these works. Titus Livius is but a collector of fables; and Tacitus, your oracle, gives me the impression of an unsmiling deceiver who flouts all the world under a pretence of gravity. I have a sufficient esteem for Thucydides, Polybius, and Guicciardini. As for our own Mézeray, he does not know what he is saying, any more than do Villaret and Abbé Vély. But I am accusing historians; it is history itself I should attack.